The Rundown California drought plan has three goals. India and the United States cooperate on clean energy. Industry and regulators agree to phase out copper brakes while the uranium industry faces new rules to protect groundwater. At the same time, pollution is rising in America’s aquifers. The political crisis in Yemen has environmental roots. A […]

The Global Rundown Over-reliance on traded grain and ‘virtual water’ is apparently what led to the rise and demise of the Roman Empire. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has recently announced that it will rely completely on imported grain by 2016. Facing inadequate public supply, desperate citizens of Yemen’s capital have taken to replacing their water meters […]

The Global Rundown Chicago cannot shut off the water supply of a suburb that owes it $US 28 million in unpaid water bills, and the Utah wants to shut off the water supply to the NSA. 2.5 billion people do not have basic sanitation services, and half of the children in Yemen are malnourished. Germany […]

U.S. Water Infrastructure The U.S. federal judge overseeing Detroit’s bankruptcy will not impose a requested 6-month moratorium on water shutoffs for city residents who are behind on their water bills, The Detroit News reported. Judge Steven Rhodes said there is no law guaranteeing residents a right to water service, and called the water shutoff plan […]

Extreme Weather The United States corn crop, worth $US 65 billion last year, is increasingly at risk from heatwaves and droughts, according to a new report released by Ceres, the Guardian reported. The report highlights that 87 percent of irrigated corn acres in the U.S. are suffering water shortages. There is now a 90 percent […]

Droughts, floods and other natural disasters are creating huge economic losses around the world, totaling about $US 2.5 trillion this century, according to estimates by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Bloomberg BNA reported. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged businesses to take steps to reduce disaster risk exposure when investing in new buildings […]

A proposal in President Barack Obama’s draft 2014 budget would cut the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Beach Grant Program. Critics, NBC4 reported, argue that people will be less informed about unhealthy ocean water if the $US 10 million cut is imposed. Yemeni Crisis In a dispatch from Taiz, Yemen, Tom Friedman writes about the violence […]

Urban Water Supply The Colorado River Commission of Nevada endorsed a plan to pump and pipe groundwater from counties north of the Las Vegas Valley to southern Nevada. The plan, with a cost estimated in the billions, would relieve some of the pressure from dropping water levels in Lake Mead, the Las Vegas Sun reported. […]

A study by European scientists warns that large geoengineering projects, which have been contemplated as a solution to global warming, could create a 20 percent reduction in rainfall over the Amazon and a 15 percent reduction over large areas of North America and northern Eurasia, AlertNet reported. Reports: Unsustainable Resource Use A new study published […]

The European Union will provide additional humanitarian aid to Yemen this year to help relieve a water, food and fuel crisis that threatens to further destabilize the conflict-torn country, Reuters reported, citing the EU humanitarian aid chief Kristalina Georgieva. Food and water are also growing scarce in Timbuktu in northern Mali, ever since rebels took […]

Irrigators in Texas and New Mexico are unhappy with a decision by the International Boundary and Water Commission to release reservoir water to Mexico, the Associated Press reported. The U.S. farmers wanted to delay the annual water release in order to cope with drought later in the growing season, but Mexican farmers, who are dealing […]

Water Shortage Years of uncontrolled digging of wells in Yemen has almost sucked the Arabian Peninsula country dry, according to Reuters. Can new projects stave off a looming water catastrophe? With no major natural freshwater sources, Cuba relies primarily on the whims of weather to supply itself with water. But experts warn that climate change […]

U.S. government support for biofuels and inaction on climate change are creating food price spikes and hunger in other countries, the Guardian reported, citing a new study by the Global Hunger Index. Twenty-six countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, are at extreme risk of hunger. Yemen could face a humanitarian crisis on a par with that […]

France plans to cancel shale gas exploration permits granted to Total SA and Schuepbach after it banned shale gas drilling due to environmental concerns earlier this year, Reuters reported, citing Le Figaro. Agriculture groups are up in arms over a proposal by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency to enlarge […]

Circle of Blue mentioned in Reuters World Economic Forum Davos Notebook: Davos 2011: More People, Fewer Resources, Big Risk. Water The situation in Yemen provides a perfect illustration of the growing problem countries face when it comes to fresh water supplies. Yemen’s population is increasing – exploding really. Currently at 23 million, it’s forecast to […]

Yemen made headlines last Christmas as the training ground for the man who attempted to blow up an airplane two months ago, but a more immediate concern for the people living in the country is a rapidly dwindling supply of freshwater.

Since the dawn of Homo sapiens in arid Africa, nine tenths of our evolution has unfolded as foragers. Only relatively recently did our species embark on agriculture, and recent events suggest certain limits to that extraordinary experiment. Exponential population growth has combined with unprecedented climate change until half the planet’s land surface can now be classified as drylands—arid landscapes inhabited by a third of humankind.